In the last six years, the Lakers have enjoyed their most consistent success in the room with the ping pong balls.

On a Tuesday night in Chicago that shook up the NBA, the Lakers walked out of the room with the No. 4 overall pick in next month’s NBA Draft – vaulting to the top tier despite fielding just the 11th-best odds (9.4 percent) of 14 teams.

For a franchise that has sustained a number of disappointments during and since its frustrating 37-45 season ended, it was a major coup to score a valuable asset that could help them this summer. General Manager Rob Pelinka, who was one of the select few present when the balls were drawn prior to the broadcast, said getting a top-four pick represented “an extraordinary shift” for the franchise’s summer plans.

The Lakers have a chance to pick one of the top prospects in a front-loaded draft on June 20 in Brooklyn, or potentially use the pick to deal for more talent around franchise centerpiece LeBron James. Either way, the fourth pick is a significant upgrade to the Lakers’ deck in a pivotal offseason.

“This is a big moment for us,” Pelinka said. “Last year, of course, we had to go through some hard and difficult things. This is certainly a great silver lining.”

Even jumping ahead seven spots in the draft order wasn’t the biggest coup of the night: That went to the New Orleans Pelicans, who landed the No. 1 overall pick that everyone expects will be Duke one-and-done star Zion Williamson. The Pelicans sustained their own wounds last season, most notably as franchise cornerstone Anthony Davis demanded a trade, but going from No. 8 before the lottery to No. 1 is a potentially franchise-saving stroke of luck.

For suitors of Davis this summer – the Lakers prominently among them – the top pick going to New Orleans puts the Pelicans in a stronger position to dictate the deal they want, which might hurt the chances of any deal getting done. Davis has two years left on his contract, though he can opt out in July of 2020.

The Memphis Grizzlies, who scored the No. 2 overall pick, also ascended into the top group despite having just the ninth-best odds. Both the Pelicans and the Grizzlies leap-frogged the New York Knicks (No 3), the Cleveland Cavaliers (No. 5) and the Phoenix Suns (No. 6), all of whom shared the best odds (14 percent) to land the first spot in the NBA’s reformed lottery odds.

It was all house money for the Lakers, who were represented onstage by second-year forward Kyle Kuzma donning a purple blazer. He beamed from his seat on the ESPN-televised broadcast as the Minnesota Timberwolves were given the 11th overall pick – signifying that the Lakers had moved into the top four.

The teams in the middle of the league had their best odds ever to move up: Entering the evening, the revised lottery gave the Lakers a 2.8 percent chance to land the No. 4 pick. With three teams moving ahead into the top four of the draft, the practice of tanking – intentionally losing to boost lottery odds – was significantly rebuked.

“I think it’s a significant step forward in sort of the NBA and Adam Silver’s vision of lottery reform,” Pelinka said. “I think that this is gonna shake things up a little bit. … And I think it is gonna leave an impact on the league and how teams play down the stretch.”

The last month since the Lakers wrapped up the season has been a tumultuous one: Team president Magic Johnson (who has not been officially replaced) resigned about 90 minutes before the team’s season finale on April 9, leading to James expressing his disbelief and apparent disappointment on his TV show “The Shop”. The Lakers cut ties with Coach Luke Walton on April 12. The team’s apparent first choice for Walton’s replacement, Tyronn Lue, broke off talks with the franchise last week, leading to the subsequent hiring of Frank Vogel.

The league has been rife with speculation about the franchise’s power structure and questioning whether the Lakers are ready to use their salary cap space to lure one of the many elite free agents available this summer. Throughout, the Lakers’ front office and ownership has largely been opaque about their offseason moves and goals.

Securing the No. 4 pick was arguably the Lakers’ most unimpeachable victory so far of the offseason. Pelinka, who has faced as much scrutiny as anyone in the Lakers’ top brass, said his 11-year-old son Durham reminded him to be optimistic going into the lottery.

“He said the world needs more optimism, and I thought that was insightful,” Pelinka said. “I just kind of went into it with that mindset. This is a powerful asset for us.”

The returning core of the Lakers is young, including two of the franchise’s three other top-four picks of the previous four drafts: Brandon Ingram (No. 2 in 2016) and Lonzo Ball (No. 2 in 2017). Kuzma and fellow 2017 draftee Josh Hart are also under contract, as is 2018 first-round draft pick Moe Wagner. The returning youth begs the question if the Lakers can add another young player to a group that has ambitions to break a six-year playoff drought – the longest in franchise history.

But Pelinka said the options are open. The scouting department will shift its focus from 11, where it had been looking, to the fourth pick to see if the draft can yield a player who can contribute to winning right away. While Williamson will certainly be off the board, and top prospects Ja Morant and R.J. Barrett are expected to follow, the Lakers should have their pick of other promising players including Texas Tech’s Jarrett Culver, Virginia’s De’Andre Hunter, Vanderbilt’s Darius Garland and Duke’s Cam Reddish, according to various draft rankings.

“What we can get at four – I will say there are some impact, incredibly talented impact players there that we are going to study deeply,” Pelinka said. “And of course, we will canvass the league and see what value that pick has (in a trade). Either of those options is an extraordinary win for us as a franchise.”

Minutes after the lottery, Pelinka said he had talked to team owner Jeanie Buss who was “just thrilled” about the outcome. While he enters his first draft without Johnson alongside him in the front office, Pelinka said his role and preparation had not changed since the Lakers drafted Ball in 2017, his first draft.

Pelinka didn’t indicate which way the Lakers will lean with the pick this summer – but he did promise it will help deliver something the team hasn’t had in a while: a winning season.

“This is just a burst of goodwill for us as a franchise,” he said. “And it just gives us some excitement and a nice launching pad going into next year, after some of the difficult things we had to go through last year. I think our focus right now is just head down, do the work.”